Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Tokyo Monagatari (Tokyo Story)

















Parents visiting their children and their family in Tokyo quickly realizes that their visit has added more burden to the struggling middle class existence of their progeny. The parents, sad but totally accepting their situation return back to their home. Ozu with his incomparable sense of humanity have composed this film to perfection. Black and white film was rarely so near poetry. Without melodrama and emotional outbursts, with the characters smiling when they are most hurt, subtle like a river flowing, Ozu tell this story so Japanese in look but universal in the language of cinema. The flow of story and the emotional coherence of the shots are so perfect that you will never notice that almost all of this masterpiece is made of static shots. One of those rare gems in the history of cinema.